ABOUT
Marta Tonelli (1990) is an Italian photographer whose work focuses on architecture, urbanism, and landscape. She develops both individual and collaborative projects, often producing visual research for artists, architects, and institutions. Her practice extends to the making of books and printed matter, with recent publications including Paolo Nestler. Ein Hauch Italien in der deutschen Nachkriegsarchitektur (Detail Editions, 2024), Master in Photography / Viaggio in Italia – four zines and two posters (Viaindustriae, 2024), and Several attempts to photograph the lunar eclipse of July 27, 2018 (self-published, 2025).
Marta graduated from the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio in 2017 under the mentorship of Mario Botta. Photography first entered her practice as a tool for documenting design and gradually evolved into an autonomous form of research and production. During her studies she worked with Pezo von Ellrichshausen in Concepción, Chile, and with Made in, Geneva. Already at that time, her photographs appeared in A+U (Tokyo), Pig Quarterly – Family Issue (Milan), and LIVING (Ediciones Casapoli, Chile), a catalogue for the 18th Chilean Architecture Biennale.
In 2018, she enrolled in the IUAV Master’s in Photography, where she developed her thesis under Stefano Graziani, later collaborating with him on a wide range of projects. She subsequently served as a research assistant to Nina Rappaport, architectural historian and Publications Director at the Yale School of Architecture. Since 2019, she has extensively collaborated with ICCD – Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Ministry of Culture, Rome.
From 2021 to 2024, she was scientific director of the IUAV Master in Photography. Since 2022 she is working alongside Eau&Gaz Verein zur Förderung von Architektur, Kunst und Design together with Kathrin & Sarah Oberrauch. In 2023, 2024, and 2025 she taught with the School of Public Architecture at Michael Graves College, Kean University (New Jersey, USA). In Spring 2025, she held her first photographic workshop at IUAV on how to photograph space, with guests Alessandra Spranzi, w+w architetti, and Valentina Merz.
CONTACT
marta@martatonelli.it
+39 347 690 2929
Via Paolo Oss Mazzurana, 54
38122 Trento, Italy
VAT number 02575900226
PRINTS & SCANS
INKJET PRINTS – STUDIO GM di MARIO GOVINO, Via Bernardino Verro, 43, 20141 — Milano
FILM NEGATIVE SCANS – Digid'A Davide Di Gianni, Via dei Gracchi, 58 00192 — Roma
Marta graduated from the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio in 2017 under the mentorship of Mario Botta. Photography first entered her practice as a tool for documenting design and gradually evolved into an autonomous form of research and production. During her studies she worked with Pezo von Ellrichshausen in Concepción, Chile, and with Made in, Geneva. Already at that time, her photographs appeared in A+U (Tokyo), Pig Quarterly – Family Issue (Milan), and LIVING (Ediciones Casapoli, Chile), a catalogue for the 18th Chilean Architecture Biennale.
In 2018, she enrolled in the IUAV Master’s in Photography, where she developed her thesis under Stefano Graziani, later collaborating with him on a wide range of projects. She subsequently served as a research assistant to Nina Rappaport, architectural historian and Publications Director at the Yale School of Architecture. Since 2019, she has extensively collaborated with ICCD – Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Ministry of Culture, Rome.
From 2021 to 2024, she was scientific director of the IUAV Master in Photography. Since 2022 she is working alongside Eau&Gaz Verein zur Förderung von Architektur, Kunst und Design together with Kathrin & Sarah Oberrauch. In 2023, 2024, and 2025 she taught with the School of Public Architecture at Michael Graves College, Kean University (New Jersey, USA). In Spring 2025, she held her first photographic workshop at IUAV on how to photograph space, with guests Alessandra Spranzi, w+w architetti, and Valentina Merz.
CONTACT
marta@martatonelli.it
+39 347 690 2929
Via Paolo Oss Mazzurana, 54
38122 Trento, Italy
VAT number 02575900226
PRINTS & SCANS
INKJET PRINTS – STUDIO GM di MARIO GOVINO, Via Bernardino Verro, 43, 20141 — Milano
FILM NEGATIVE SCANS – Digid'A Davide Di Gianni, Via dei Gracchi, 58 00192 — Roma
As Lewis Baltz wrote in an interview he conducted with himself at the age of 27, a photograph—a print—is a flat figure with five sides: the four edges and the surface, that is, the area where we see the content of the photograph. This statement, while seemingly logical, has a very strong revelatory impact: we need to experience it, to see it. We cannot photograph what we do not see, but we can observe anything at any time, without seeking a particular or decisive moment. Although, according to Anaxagoras, it is precisely through the visible that we access the invisible...
Portrait by S. Graziani, Finstral production site, glass cutting line, Scurelle, Italy, 2021